^ T. A. Gumey, The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, 96.
COLOSSIANS III. 2-4 507
may be muddied with rain, but it will be limpid as ever. The things seen do not go deep enough to touch our real life. They are but as the winds that fret and the currents that sway the surface and shallower levels of the ocean, while the great depths are still. The circumference is all a whirl; the centre is at rest.
^ In the early folk-lore of various countries, we come, here and there, on certain statements which have a singular affinity with what St. Paul says in the text and which may possibly have had something to do with the form, at least, of the thought which he there expresses. I refer to the accounts which are given about cruel giants and other monstrosities who could not be killed by wounds that would at once have ended the life of any other creature. They might be pierced through the heart with the sword of an assailant, they might be hurled from a precipice that should have broken all their bones, they might be left for dead in a burning fire that should have consumed them effectually, but nothing could touch their life, or even seriously hurt them. For, according to the story, their life was not in their own bodies, but somewhere else, and carefully concealed so that no one could reach it. It is represented as being, perhaps, hid in an egg, which is in the belly of a fish, which is swimming in a lake, which lies among inaccessible mountains or an island that is far away in some untravelled ocean ; and unless you can discover that ocean and the island and the lake, and catch the fish, and lay hold on the egg, nothing you can do will anywise affect the life of the terrible being you are anxious, for some reason, to destroy. As a rule, the stories tell us that, after many had tried and failed, a hero comes at last who, by some means or other, discovers the secret, overcomes all the difficulties, and destroys the creature who had wrought so much mischief, but with that part of them we have at present nothing "to do. What I want to point out is simply the idea, which seems to have been pretty widely pre- valent, that one's life could be kept apart from one's self, and so hid as to be very hard to reach, and that no injury to one's body could anywise affect such a life.^
^ Botanists tell us that there is a beautiful arrangement in nature for clothing our barren moorlands with a vesture of heather. The heather cannot nourish itself, but must be nourished, so to speak, by a foster-parent, which prepares its food for it, reducing the peat upon which it grows into a condition that renders it capable of being absorbed and assimilated. So at the
1 Walter C. Smith.
5o8 . THE HIDDEN LIFE
extreme ends of the roots of the heather, you will find mingled with the finer fibres a tissue of delicate whitish threads. This is not part of the heather itself, but a separate plant or fungus which lives in association with the heather, and does for it the kindliest service, nourishing its vitals at the fountain head. Microscopic examination of the fine rootlets of the heather shows how filaments of its hidden friend and partner penetrate into the very cells of the texture of these rootlets, conveying life and strength to the whole plant. Without the help of this hidden intermediary the heather would wither and die. And whenever you transplant heather without securing its associate feeder, your labour is in vain, the heather infallibly dies. So our spiritual life is linked with Christ and hid in God. We are identified with Christ, and He communicates to us His own life. " With- out me," He says, " ye can do nothing." But, says the Apostle, as if responding to Him, "I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me." The hidden life of Christ works deep down at the roots of our being, and the chief hindrance to a noble and rich and fruitful career is that we do not sufficiently realize our oneness with Christ and His readiness to vitalize all our spiritual and moral energies.^
Since Eden, it keeps the secret !
Not a flower beside it knows To distil from the day the fragrance
And beauty that flood the rose.
Silently speeds the secret
From the loving eye of the sun To the willing heart of the flower:
The life of the twain is one.
Folded within my being,
A wonder to me is taught, Too deep for curious seeing
Or fathom of sounding thought.
Of all sweet mysteries holiest!
Faded are rose and sun ! The Highest hides in the lowliest; My Father and I are one.^ > Hugh Macmillan. 2 Charles G. Ames.
GOLOSSIANS III. 2-4 509
III.
The Coming Manifestation.
1. TJie present has in it the promise of the future. — Eternal life is a condition of the soul into which we may pass without dying ; indeed, at any moment this resurrection may take place, we may pass from death to life, or also from life to death ; the lower sphere may be exchanged for the higher, or the higher for the lower. And 80 when the lawyer asked the great question, " What shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " the answer practically was that the love of God and man is eternal life. It is a change in the sphere and level of life and emotion now, not a succeeding stage in our existence. In fact, to be spiritually minded, this is life ; and to be carnally minded, this is death. The teaching of the Apostles is everywhere clear. " We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." " Our citizenship is in heaven." " We have come to the heavenly Jerusalem." " Christ is our life." The Gospel Christ preached is pre-eminently one of the present world ; it is the release from the grip of sin now, that real redemption which we may daily verify when we give up any wrong act for the love of Christ ; it is the presence of God in the heart now.